Future of Ford’s train station comes alive with light and sound show

DETROIT -- With an 18-story light show and booming sound across Roosevelt Park, Ford Motor Co.'s vision for the long-vacant Michigan Central Station comes alive in Detroit’s Corktown.

The light show is apart of Ford’s Winter Festival, a community event taking place in front of the train station in Corktown to coincide with the 2019 North American International Auto Show in downtown Detroit.

The projection tells the story of the station’s “glory days, its revitalization and its future as the centerpiece of the company’s 1.2-million-square-foot innovation campus,” according to a news release.

Once the four-year Michigan Central Station project is complete, Ford will move about 2,500 employees into the once-doomed train station by 2022, and it will serve as the future “centerpiece” for Ford’s new Detroit-based campus.

London-based Imagination Group worked with Ford Motor Co. to create the projection display on the train station and for Ford’s big auto show reveals.

According to Crain’s Detroit Business, “Imagination used 3-D projection-mapping technology. The team first flew drones around the building to create a full scan of the structure as a template. Then more than 15 animators created moving images that were then stretched and form-fit precisely to the station’s curves and edges.”

Between the big show, which plays three times an hour, are projections of work from local Detroit artists and children’s drawings that canvas the entire building.

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Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Central Station Winter Festival

The festival runs through Sunday, Jan. 27 and is open from 5:30 to 10 p.m. on Saturday and from 5:30 to 9 p.m. on Sunday.

The former train station is currently closed for renovation work, but guests outside can expect a heated tent with an exhibition of train station artifacts curated by the Detroit Historical Society, food trucks and beverage stations.